Suren Shadunts


Suren Konstantinovich Shadunts was First Secretary of the Communist Party of Tajikistan between 1934 and 1937. Shadunts was executed in 1940 as part of the Great Purge.

Life and career

Of Armenian descent, Shadunts was born in Cəbrayil, Elisabethpol Governorate, Russian Empire in 1898. He received his early education in Shushi. In 1917, Shadunts became a member of the Communist Party. He became an activist for the communist cause in Azerbaijan. In 1921, he went to Armenia and participated in the fighting as a result of the establishment of Republic of Mountainous Armenia. After the Republic of Mountainous Armenia was dismembered, Shadunts became the Executive Secretary of the Municipal Committee in Yerevan in 1923. He became the head of the Department of Water Resources of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the Armenian SSR in 1923 and served this position until 1927. From 1928 to 1931, he was the head of the Transcaucasian Water Management bureau.
Shadunts eventually became the chairman of the Central Asian Cotton-growing Company in 1932 and remained at this post for two years. Immediately thereafter, he became the secretary for the Central Asian Bureau of Communist USSR. A year later, in 1935, Shadunts became the first secretary of Tajikistan SSR. In the same year, he was awarded the Order of Lenin for his outstanding achievements in the field of agriculture and for exceeding state plans.
While on a working visit in Moscow, Shadunts was arrested for 'counter-revolutionary' activity and was sentenced to death; his execution took place in 1938.
Shadunts' reputation was formally reestablished in 1957.